Water purification apparatus and units for use in laboratories and healthcare facilities are well known. One of their applications is to feed analysers such as clinical analysers that carry out one or more test on a sample in a standard repetitive automated process. A set amount of water is required during this process to make solutions, to dilute solutions and/or to rinse out the lines, vessels, probes and other equipment that make up the analyser. One water purification apparatus can be used to feed several individual clinical analysers or several module parts of one or more analysers. JP2000266763 disclosed a water purification apparatus incorporated into the body of an analyser.
Clinical analysers are well known in the art, generally being medical laboratory instruments able to analyse a sample, generally a medical sample, to determine one or more characteristics in or for a clinical purpose. One example is an analyser able to measure the properties of bodily fluids such as blood or urine, to assist in diagnosis of a condition or disease of a patient.
Clinical analysers, with their increasing automation, can provide faster and more accurate and more wide ranging information to a user or operator or to medical personnel, and are being increasingly used in research, hospitals, medical laboratories and similar faculties, often in batch processing environments.
Generally, water purification units involve the reduction and/or removal of contaminants and impurities to very low levels. The units contain a variety of technologies that remove particles, colloids, bacteria, ionic species and organic substances. These technologies last a varied length of time before requiring the replacement of parts due to either wear or by being exhausted of operational capacity. These time periods vary depending upon the technologies used and the interactive effect of the combinations of technologies used within the components within the water purification unit. Some components require infrequent changes such as pumps, tubes or reverse osmosis membranes while other items may require more frequent attention such as depth filters or ion exchange cartridges.
These more frequently changed cartridges are usually changed out by the on-site operator when an alarm from the water purification unit indicates that the removal capacity of the component has been used up. This may be based upon time, usage or as detected by sensors built into the water purification unit.
The less frequently changed items are usually changed on site when a fault arises with the component. These actions typically require the services of a trained water purification unit service engineer who may take some time before being able to respond to a fault. Alternatively they may be changed as part of a preventative maintenance schedule but again require the services of a trained water purification unit service engineer.
These requirements for repeated interactions with parts of the water purification unit lead to a requirement for on-site personnel, such as the operators of the analysers, to have some knowledge of the working processes and alarms of the water purification unit. For units with complex alarm systems, site engineers trained in all the processes and functions of the water purification unit may be required. The repeated interactions with the water purification unit also lead to repeated periods when water is unavailable to the analyser resulting in a productivity loss of that analyser.